


We All Scream for Ice Cream

by ReadsAloud



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReadsAloud/pseuds/ReadsAloud
Summary: Apparently, ice cream is the great Scooby salve
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers, Angel/Spike (BtVS), Spike/Buffy Summers
Kudos: 13





	We All Scream for Ice Cream

Faith was annoyed when she entered the Summers residence. She’d spent all day, showing Giles, Willow and Xander her favourite new shops and cafes –the ones that had opened since they’d last stopped by a year ago- and was looking forward to going home to coo over some kick purchases in private, when Dawn had called and frantically insisted that they return to casa summers, “post-haste”.

Hence, the moody senior slayer strut into the apartment behind the others, firmly kicked the door shut behind her and -with a deep sense of frustration from being interrupted from the start of her vacation by the little imp’s ‘crisis’ tone- addressed Dawn in a rushed voice. “What’s up, kid? Why’d you call us all back from our big day o’ fun in Rome? Isn’t it enough that we’re planning to spend all weekend together?”

Dawn started speaking rapidly. “Um, I think they broke Buffy and since she won’t talk to me, I figured you guys might be able to fix…”

“What do you mean, broken?” Willow cut her off with a worried look.

“Who broke her?” Xander asked in his overprotective voice.

Faith just brushed it off. “Aww, she got in a fight? I’m sure the other guy looks worse.”

“Is she hurt badly?” Giles just sounded resigned, almost as if he had been counting the seconds until something, inevitably, ruined their respite.

Dawn shook her head and held out a hand and to still them before they worked themselves into a complete tizzy. “No, no no.” Dawn said quickly. “She’s not broken physically, so just chill. Anyway, Spike and Angel called and, they seemed to have a normal conversation until Buffy started sounding a little shrill.” Dawn held up a hand. “I know, I’m not supposed to eavesdrop, but she does it to me and Paolo all the time and, even though I can’t tell what she was on about, you wouldn’t know anything at all, if I hadn’t listened in because she hasn’t said anything for hours and I’m started to get kinda weirded out because I’m not sure if she’ll ever speak again.” Dawn sucked in a breath.

Willow looked askance at the others for a minute and seeing Dawn’s state-of-mind, she decided to let the eavesdropping issue go –for now- and concentrate on the facts. “OK Dawnie, calm down. No one’s gonna yell. Can you tell us what exactly did you hear?”

Dawn looked relieved. “Well, there was some normal ‘Hey, what’s up?’, ‘What’s your eta?’, ‘Is everything at the office?’ type chatter and then Buffy’s voice completely changed and it went kind of like this:

‘I know, you’re coming together from LA…What are you not saying?... Why do you both need to be on speaker phone?…WHAT?!...Please tell me this is a joke…OK, not a joke…Yeah, I’m still here…No, no,no…it’s fine, I guess…no big… why should I care? Apparently you don’t need my permission…Sure I’m sure… no, don’t be silly, Dawn and Faith really want to see you both…Yeah, I do too…No, I’m not just saying that…Yeah, mature girl, that’s me. I’m a regular ‘third millennium Slayer’… Uh huh…See you later…yeah, maybe that would be better. Nah, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, you might want to invest in a lock… No seriously…Ha!...No worries, I’ll give Faith a heads up…OK… bye.’”

Dawn looked up at their reactions, but it didn’t seem that any of them had made better sense of the exchange than she had. “Yeah, I know, weird, but not crazy apocalypse talk or anything obvious. Anyway, about half an hour later I was trying to call Roxanna and couldn’t get a line out, so I went down to see if sister-dear was on the phone again. She wasn’t, but I did notice something pretty freaky: she hadn’t moved one inch from when I last peeked in on her and the dial tone was still blaring from the open-line in her hand.

“When I finally called you all back here, she must have been sitting on the couch, staring into space with the phone –at least I reached in and pressed the off button- still in her hand and a really blank look on her face for about another forty minutes. Really, she acted like she was in shock. I don’t think she heard a word I said or even noticed I was here. If she did, she certainly didn’t answer me. She finally moved about twenty-five minutes ago and now, she’s just…”

“What? She’s what?” Willow and Xander interrupted in twitchy unison as Faith and Giles silently exchanged a puzzled glance.

“Well, just look.” Dawn said, as she pushed open the swinging door and let them all look over her shoulder at the pitiful sight of Buffy staring into space, a spoon making its way from the gallon of “Chunky Monkey” on the table to her slack mouth.

They all tried calling her name, waving hands in front of her face, and even poking her until Willow, oddly enough, was the first to snap. At which point, she slapped Buffy across the face and yelled. “Snap out of it, Buffy, you’re scaring us!”

Buffy finally responded. “What? Huh?” Coming to her senses, she looked at the half-eaten/half-soup gallon of ice-cream before her, stuck her spoon in it and pushed it away. “Oh. Sorry. I guess I was in shock.”

“You guess?” Xander supplied. “One conversation with Un-Deadboy and Fangless has you turning into this? What in the hell city have those two razed to the ground this time?” he quipped.

“Um, they didn’t” Buffy replied absently before shaking off the last of her daze and flashing her friends a forced smile that looked much more like a grimace. “They didn’t do anything. They were just confirming plans and sleeping arrangements and stuff.”

“And that makes you zone out for, like one and a half hours?” Willow asked cautiously.

“Yeah, c’mon, Buffy, you said you were over both of them. Remember how we made you promise that we would only invite them to our annual mini no-slay vacay en Roma if you could manage to keep the former-vampire/senior-slayer drama down to a minimum?” Xander whined in a more-than slightly annoyed tone.

“Excuse me, if I have to agree with Xander that your reaction to merely speaking with them over the phone does not bode for a very drama-free weekend.” Giles intoned dryly. “It isn’t too late to just tell them to go home. I’m sure they’d understand.”

“Hey!” Faith and Dawn protested from their positions by the door.

“Well, I hate to agree, Buffy, but maybe the guys are right. If you can’t handle seeing them…” Willow let her sentence trail off.

“No, no, it’s not that. We’re all just friends… Or at least, I am… or… whatever. Anyway, you can get that worried/mad look off your face Dawnie, I’m not sending your partner in mayhem or Faith’s BFF packing just because I...um… Look, I’m fine, they just had a bit of news that caught me off guard, that’s all.”

“What else could it be? You knew all about their dragon-slaying in LA –when there still was an LA, that is. I mean, really, you’d think that they wouldn’t always have to one-up us. We call slayers and destroy a hellmouth and what do they do? They come back from the dead, join an evil pan-dimensional law-firm, take out major evil, which leads to dragons, open portals to hell-dimensions and destroying the main seat of evil –not to mention one of the top ten economies- in the world. Really, they have no respect for… Um, but that wasn’t the point of this conversation, so I’ll stop talking now.” Willow ended her babble with a blush.

“Thank you” Giles said to Willow, before returning to the subject. “You already knew about Connor. You knew that they have both recently turned human.”

“At the rate they’re going, I don’t even think they can top any of those and whatever it is must be pretty tame. So, what else –other the fact that they want to try another round of cuddles and/or recriminations- could those guys have come up with that would possibly traumatize you to this degree?” Xander asked looking completely non-plussed and on the verge of hitting something.

“Were you just being dramatic? Because if you were, I want you to know that it wasn’t funny and that you actually had me scared with the whole non-respondy thing.” Said Dawn, quasi hopefully.

“B, not for nothin, but you’re all crazy about your stick-figure and I know you don’t break out the gallon of ice-cream just for kicks. This must be worse than you’re sayin.”

Buffy hung her head and mumbled stiltedly as if addressing the tabletop. “No, it’s not bad. You’re right. I just over reacted. Don’t worry, I’ll be good by the time they get here.”

“So, there is something to overreact about?” prodded Willow.

“Uh, no?” said Buffy, in a tone-of-voice that fooled no one.

“Buffy…” Giles said sternly.

Buffy sighed and resigned herself to the fact that they weren’t going to leave any time soon. “OK, but, um… just don’t laugh cuz I really don’t know if I can take that right now.”

“Fine. Spill.” Said Dawn, a little too eagerly.

Buffy frowned in her direction –though still not meeting her eyes- and tried to find a way to speak. “How do I put this… uh, you know they’re living together?”

“Yeah, they’re doing the whole supernatural detective thing with their new team in New York.” Supplied Willow.

“Kinda, but um… let’s try it this way…” Buffy squeezed the hand that Giles had rested on her left shoulder before lifting her gaze to the level of Willow and Xander, who were standing beside the chairs to her left. “Remember when I was telling you guys what Spike told me about how he was turned?”

“Sure” Willow said.

Xander nodded too. “And…”

Buffy continued shakily “And remember when Giles was trying to tell us about varying accounts of Spike’s place in ‘the family’” Buffy used her hands to make air-quotes “and how some of the journals didn’t match with what Spike said?”

“Uh, huh, go on” Xander said a bit more nervously.

“I don’t see why any of this matters if they’re not vampires anymore, but OK” said Willow matter-of-factly.

“Long story short, Xander’s going to be a married millionaire” said Buffy, looking down at the table.

“Huh?” Willow squinched up her face in confusion.

“Oh!” Giles exclaimed. “You mean when I was speaking about Tomas Robbins’ journal”

Xander interrupted swiftly “And you said, ‘if that’s true, I’ll give Xander a million dollars and marry him too.’”

Willow cut in, starting to understand“You mean, Drusilla didn’t ‘accidentally’ discover William after he was rejected by…”

“Cecily?” Dawn interjected “He told me that story too, why does it matter now, even if it’s not exactly like he says.”

Willow and Xander seemed to simultaneously drop into their chairs. “Um…WOW… just…WOW…” Willow said, seeming to go into a daze herself.

Dawn was starting to get worried by Willow’s reaction. “Oh, for cripes sake. Not Willow too. Look Buffy, now you broke Willow. What the hell is going on?”

“Yeah, guys, some of us don’t have that freaky mind-meld-mojo that you guys have, so we can’t speak fluent Scooby. Could you maybe clear this up a bit and tell me whatever it is, Buffy’s supposed to tell me so I can go try on my new boots? They are sooo bitchin!”

“Um, Willow’s not broken, she’ll be OK. We both just need a minute to scrub our brains.” Xander said as he grabbed Buffy’s spoon, pulled the carton closer, scooped out some ice-cream soup, fed it to Willow and proceeded to repeat the process for himself.

Buffy placed her hand on Xander’s back soothingly. “Now you know how I felt. Well, maybe one millionth of it…” Buffy looked away from Xander’s sympathetic, spacey nod to address Dawn. “I’m freaked because the whole story wasn’t a total lie. There was no accidental meeting, but there was stalking and obsession and tens of years of sex and love that had absoloutely nothing to do with Cecily or Dru.”

“So what if they’ve been fighting over Darla or some long-lost woman-friend for centuries? Who cares? Why the crazy need for ice-cream?” Dawn said expressing little tolerance for their obfuscations.

Buffy let her head drop to the table with a thud.

“Seriously, B, stop bein a drama queen and cut to the chase. I ain’t gettin any younger.” Faith said distractedly.

Giles re-settled his frames, put a comforting hand out to stroke her limp, golden locks and intervened for his, distraught, slayer. “I think what she’s trying to say is that plans have changed somewhat and that Willow will be sleeping here, while Angel and Spike will be staying with you instead.”

Dawn squinched up her face “Willow, I thought you were so excited when you beat Giles in Trivial Pursuit and won the weekend in Faith’s brand new, queensize guest-bed…and, anyway, doesn’t Faith only have” Dawn’s speech slowed as understanding slowly crept in “one…guest… room?...oh...YIKES!” Dawn would have said more, but when reality fully hit her -like a ton of bricks- her mouth formed the words, but she was totally incapable of producing any sound so, she just dropped to the chair across from Buffy, stared and opened her mouth for the spoon of ice-cream that Xander was sending her way.

Faith, always highly amused by Scooby prudery, couldn’t help but state the matter directly. “Geez, that’s all this song and dance was all about? So, what? Basically, you tellin me that Fang and Jr. are bumpin uglies and that when Giles tried to tell you about it, you thought he was… what… making up stories? So you never once bothered to even try to ask A if it was true or see if they’d let you be the slayer-meat in that tasty vampwich? Damn, B, I hate to say this, but you dropped the ball… Big time! You sure, knowin what you know now, you don’t wanna keep em here …or get a big ole soundproofed hotel room? I’m sure Will could rig that up for you if you ask real nice and…”

“Faith! This is serious! Can’t you see that Buffy is trying to deal?” Willow screeched as Buffy’s head snapped up and she and Xander glared daggers at their ‘blunt’ friend.

Faith threw up her hands in mock-surrender. “OK, don’t take my head off. My place it is… no skin off my nose if I have to play lube-jockey to two hotties all weekend. Oh, and Giles, if you and Wes had ever dropped some share-time knowledge like that into your boring ass lectures, back in the day,” Faith winked in his direction, “a) I wouldn’t have let it go to waste and b) I just might have payed a bit more attention...”

“Faith, Please!” Giles pled in a strained voice as he now had both hands on Buffy’s shoulders and was trying to keep her from lunging across to launch an attack.

Faith just smirked as she turned to exit the kitchen and headed for the front door “OK, OK, I’ll go hook up the den of iniquity. You know where I live if you change your mind. I’m just sayin…” Faith’s last sentiment was cut-short as the door slammed closed in her wake.


End file.
